Well of Grief

Well of Grief

When retired in an independent living retirement community, one lives in a concentration of persons at least 62+. Its a golfing community. We see plenty of golfers among our residents, but that is not all that we see.  This year, we have seen more death among our older residents than RL saw over the previous year.  Thus, we have memorial services for those who knew them.  In this place, we see many who are like us in other ways.  Most folks here are Christians and go to church either here or somewhere out in the community.  In communities where we have lived, it has been often without the sharing stories, family history, and even personal antidotes. Here, at RL, we are forged into a family.  We are active together and we grow older together, all of which leads me to the “well of grief.” 

I have been working on a series of lessons regarding suffering, and one of the most difficult of suffering to deal with is grief, for what ever reason.  And because we live in a concentration of persons who are over 62 years of age, we get to know each other more in time than in a community like we lived in before we move to RL, often cold, impersonal, and gossipy.  When we arrived, our names were placed on the outside door frame, we were written up in our River Currents, and were welcomed literally to our new “home.” Since my unexpected back surgery, I’ve received more “get well” cards from folks I have never met. Here we acknowledge each other’s presence and will eventually learn many of the names. 

We are ‘family’, which means we are drawn together and experience a great deal more grief when one of our ‘family' members becomes ill and/or dies. We never experienced that when we live in transient subdivisions. The lack of commonality in a subdivision etc. deceives us us into thinking we are like everyone else, but we are not. Here we see, recognize and respond to life, infirmities, family struggles and even dying and death which is often avoided in the world apart from RL. Reality hits us because we all have similar situations and we know about it.  That is a deep “well of grief” we face.  But folks, we face it together even if we do not know the individual that “passed away”.  

Let me add this:  

Becky  and I do  not attend most memorial services. Yet we still grieve for the ‘family’ and those who knew the deceased.  We can read it on their faces.  And, we can read it on one another’s face, every time it is announced that one of our ‘family’ members dies.  Believe me this community does not live in grief. We celebrate a lot. We get involved in community benevolent efforts.  The support and encouragement from one another is much like we got many years ago when our neighbors would speak to one another, wave, and sit on the porch with us or we with them.  But what is unique is that because we live in a very caring community we know many who have faced wars, have lost their spouse and others who are facing debilitating illnesses.  But as we also share the infirmities, we also share the joys of family, celebrations, and victories and we share it together. Maybe RL is not real, but we are similar to those who, like in some of our churches, draw close to one another and face the ups and downs of life together.   

Adam, our son, said to us, not long ago, that dropping us off at RL was like dropping his kids off at the college/university. Its true, but there is an intimacy here that we did not find nor will find in a dorm nor in a subdivision. It may be possible in a sorority or fraternity, but the kind of intimacy we find here is quiet, beautiful, non intrusive, but extremely caring one. In fact, we rarely lock our doors. And it seems that we have a glimmer in our eye when we talk about our faith and future that I rarely saw in the folks of the subdivisions in which we lived. We have this sure and certain hope that after we leave here we will be headed toward eternity, not a job, or other uncertain and transient earthly future. Yes, it can be a “well of grief”, but one ‘thread that runs through it’ is our confidence in our eternal life with God with all other believers in Christ.  The grief is deep at times but the joy is deeper and everlasting. And many of us share that together.   Thanks be To God.

Quentin

Sharecropper’s Inheritance

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